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Internet and Public Relations

Julia Castillo Reading Response April 20, 2009 Internet and Public Relations In chapter 15, edited by Graber, it focuses on the Internet and campaign strategies. It particularly focuses on how Howard Dean used the Internet to farther his campaign. Dean used the web to organize, invigorate, and finance his campaign and thus pushed it to national notability. When looking at the 2000 and 2002 General Social Surveys found that there was little difference between the political learning’s of users and non-users. There was however a difference in partisanship and usage of the Internet. Liberals are dominant when it comes to politics online. The Dean online campaign strategy only highlighted the importance of the liberal-conservative gap when it comes to web usage. Dean’s campaign benefited greatly from the digital version of the Gary Hart effect, as well as being able to generate positive press coverage. With the rise of the Internet campaign it could very well alter some key parts of the nation’s political infrastructure. Money also plays a key component in electoral success. Even through Dean’s success of his Internet campaign, it is still puzzling to many political scientists how he became a front-runner in the first place. The next chapter focuses on public relations and foreign affairs. Public relations is sometimes seen as a form of lobbying, but a lot of times, when it comes to politics, public relations firms often teach governments what to say about their policies and activities. There are two general strategies that are employed to help other countries raise their influence and image in the United States. These strategies are, the what-you-see-is-what-you-get style and the other is a much more low visibility approach. When it comes to foreign affairs, even the higher ups need help knowing what is going on. Like us, they too depend on the media to help them know what is going on. There are two factors when talking about foreign affairs coverage. These are visibility and favorability, when you put these two things together you get four different settings. The first setting is when the country is in the news a lot and has generally negative images. The second setting is when the coverage is generally negative but they also have low visibility. The third and fourth setting the country has a positive image. I thought it was interesting about the different settings that are done through public relations. I have never really given much thought to how public relations can frame and decide what a country might look like.